North Queensland’s Barrier Reef Institute of TAFE has today been awarded Australian Government funding to start a new competition to encourage its students to step into the ‘real world’ of business planning and develop their entrepreneurial skills.

In Townsville today, Federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane announced that 12 Australian tertiary and higher education institutions have been awarded funding of $134,500 under the Government’s National Innovation Awareness Strategy.

“The Barrier Reef TAFE has been awarded $15,000 to initiate a Business Plan Competition for its students,” said Mr Macfarlane.

“The idea of the competition is to give students a link to their local business communities and some ‘real-life’ experience to build on their entrepreneurial skills, regardless of what faculty they come from,” he said.

The competition, which will run for about a year, will be open to all students of the TAFE and they can compete in teams of one to five members. A panel of North Queensland business people will judge the final winners of the competition.

The Barrier Reef TAFE applied for the funding “to encourage students to team up with local business entrepreneurs, to build their business plans and encourage the support of local business development groups within the region.”

“This is an effective grass-roots method of not only developing entrepreneurial skills and promoting an understanding of innovation, but it also gives our future business leaders an early chance to test their ideas,” said Mr Macfarlane.

The successful recipients are: Bendigo Regional Institute of TAFE; University of Western Australia; Edith Cowan University; William Angliss Institute of TAFE;

Douglas Mawson Institute of Technology; University of NSW; University of Adelaide; University of the Sunshine Coast;

Kangan Batman TAFE; Regency Institute of TAFE;

North Coast Institute of TAFE; Barrier Reef Institute of TAFE.

Further details about NIAS can be found on the Department’s website at www.industry.gov.au/nias Department Contact: Tricia Berman, Innovation Policy Branch, (02) 6213 7444 CMR04-071